They had beautiful deep green leaves, and delicate branches that swayed gently in the summer breeze.

They didn't ask for much did they? There you were ready and able to annihilate. Well, well. .... ;) On a lighter note(fnah fnah) We have just saved 6 acres from ever being chopped down ('cept of course the building site.) Frankly it was irresistable.

Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events : the oil just spilled there, the safety fence just broke there : that must also be a miracle. Just because its not nice, doesn't mean its not miraculous.

The tree was probably going to fall on some wires and electrocute you, but it went for the 'spontaneous combust (with assisstance) ' option, now it will be plotting some other evil way. Is it poisonous?

Forgive my note of sarcasm here - but it's a cliche that all to often becomes ones worst nightmare. Bam! The poor wee thing becomes a 40 meter pine blocking your sunlight and creaking ever so noisly on windy nights. All for a moment's thinking howbig is that thing gunna get??

David we have all done dumb things"That seemed like a good idea, at the time!"Well I have and so it would seem have you

I don't think I need to detail the Great Smoke Inhalation Affair or the Melting Pot Incident to give you the flavour of some of the fire-related mishaps in households I've lived in. It mostly doesn't do to dwell on them too much, with the exception of making sure there's no repeat.

Hey, with all due respect Christopher ( and wee Mexican Elder) and really don't need to step in, I am sure, but, I have a few Bay trees (Portuguese Bay laurel) and in hot weather they get up to 10 metres but in cold they are considerably different, yet still grow nicely. So David may have thought south side , bit cold. less chance , limited info by the retailer etc. etc. Still, continuous pruning can reduce water consumption and clay soil will jam the doors every summer.That should be common knowledge eh? ;)

David Just be careful laddie. When the chips are down, you are committed to a be a victim of revenge. Remember that while you sleep the chippies will be plotting because as you know, "They Walk by Night!"

There must be a word (and if there isn't, there should be) for that peculiar lurch you get in your guts, and the associated unpleasant skin-creepy feeling, when you realise that you're fine, but a few seconds ago you were inches/milliseconds/one flip of the cards of fate from something really nasty.

The time you jumped from a 10-metre cliff into a rockpool, and realised there was a submerged boulder a foot away from where you landed....

The time the rear of the car gave an interesting little shimmy, and you crossed the centre line for a second, getting yourself back on the right side of the road seconds before a logging truck came round the corner the other way...

The time you were drilling a hole in the wall to put up a picture, and there was a bright blue flash and the drill bit was suddenly half the length it was when you started...

When I was about 9 I had a horrible dream about driving down the Desert road on a family holiday and the whole Desert road was on fire. I woke up very upset and sleepily climbed into my parent's bed for comfort.

At that point we realised the house was full of smoke...

The clothes rack in hall had been left with a heater under it to dry the large sheets of cloth soaked in detergent that Dad sold as windscreen demisting clothes. We ended up with a patch of burnt floor tiles and a hell of a scare.

I was too young to understand just how close we had come. Looking back I can understand that my father must have felt just like you David.

The time I was biking along, cutting through to the left of stopped traffic, and the front wheel slipped down into the gutter and I ended up falling onto the left front quarter panel of someone's car... then reflecting about 500m down the road what might have happened if I'd done that in moving traffic and fallen in front of a car.

There was also the time when Dad managed to shut the power cord of a toasted sandwich maker inside the hot plates while it was still plugged in and working - cue tremendous bang, a ball of blue light about two foot across, and a few reflective minutes on the part of everyone in the room.

There must be a word (and if there isn't, there should be) for that peculiar lurch you get in your guts, and the associated unpleasant skin-creepy feeling, when you realise that you're fine, but a few seconds ago you were inches/milliseconds/one flip of the cards of fate from something really nasty.

There is... Life.Which is why, when it all turns to custard people say "That's Life"

Do you really mean to deny the divine intervention that self-evidentally saved your wretched skin?

So, I used to have this... person I was forced to interact with regularly, who was interesting. She told this story about the time she was woken by their lights flickering on and off. Thought it was one of their kids acting up. It stopped, then started again, and her husband got up to catch the offender. Nobody there, but he noticed a funny smell, went round the corner, and discovered that their fuse box was pretty much melting into a pile of slag.

It was of course, a miracle. Because you see God had made their lights flicker, to warn them that they were in terrible danger from their electrics. There is, after all, no other possible explanation.